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Enlarge ImageRequest to buy this photoASSOCIATED PRESS FILE PHOTO"To me, this is a dream come true. I pinch myself every day. I wake up in the morning, and I say, 'I'm head coach of the Cleveland Browns. I can't wait to get to work.'" -- Mike Pettine, Browns coach

INDIANAPOLIS — If Mike Pettine didn’t know what he was getting into when he became Cleveland Browns’ coach exactly a month ago, he does now.

It’s no secret that Pettine, only 13 years removed from being a high-school coach, wasn’t the Browns’ first choice when he was hired after a protracted, much-mocked search.

Team owner Jimmy Haslam then fired Joe Banner and Mike Lombardi, the two front-office executives in charge of the coaching search, adding to the “what will they do next?” cloud hanging over the franchise.

So it was a jolt to Pettine when ProFootballTalk.com reported on Friday that the Browns had tried to trade for San Francisco 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh during the search. Although Harbaugh and the 49ers denied the report, the Browns didn’t.

Welcome to Cleveland, Coach.

Pettine got tipped off to the report before it came out.

“I shot the messenger a little bit,” Pettine said yesterday at the NFL combine. “I asked, ‘Does that affect my tenure as the head coach?’ The obvious answer was ‘no,’ and then I think my next line either had the word flying in it or referenced a part of a rat’s body.”

But Pettine said he wasn’t fazed by the report. Instead, he said it shows the commitment of the Browns to win. If there was a chance to get Harbaugh, Pettine understood.

Still, it was more unwanted distraction as the Browns prepare for a draft that will be crucial to revitalizing the franchise.

“A big thing about being a head coach is dealing with the noise, dealing with the distractions,” he said.

Asked if there was more noise with the Browns than elsewhere, Pettine replied, “That potentially is an accurate statement. I’d like to think that it’s going to get quieter. That’s my goal: to quiet the noise. The sooner I can get off this podium and go in there and find some players to help the Browns, the better.”

The Browns, like all teams, are in the early stages of their draft preparation. With five of the first 83 selections, including the fourth overall, this draft is crucial for Cleveland.

Unfortunately, the Browns’ history isn’t inspiring. Their predicament this year is similar to the one they faced in 1999 in their return to the NFL. That year, like this one, the top of the draft board was filled with quarterback candidates, but none was a sure thing.

The Browns took Tim Couch, who did not develop into a franchise quarterback.

This year, Cleveland likely will have a chance to draft one of the three top-rated quarterbacks: Johnny Manziel, Teddy Bridgewater or Blake Bortles. Understandably, neither Pettine nor new general manager Ray Farmer would tip their hand about what direction the Browns might go.

“We’re not locked into saying we have to take a quarterback early in the draft,” Pettine said. “ Look at the final four in the NFL last year. You have a sixth-round pick, which is an absolute anomaly, in (Tom) Brady, and the first pick in the draft in Peyton Manning. Then you saw the 49ers and Seahawks did it going another way. There are a lot of ways to win in this league.”

He said that only a few quarterbacks are capable of carrying a team to a championship. The preferred path is to build a strong team around a capable quarterback.

“We have some good players here,” Pettine said. “We’re right at the tail end of the (internal) evaluation period. There are some open spots. That’s the reason we’re here (at the combine). We’re looking for guys to be the next batch of Cleveland Browns.

“We want to make that mean something. Being a Cleveland Brown is special, and we’re looking for those guys who play like a Brown — the toughness part of it, competitiveness, passionate; they love football, they’re gym rats. Those are the types of guys that we’re looking for to fill those holes.”< /p>

The Browns have a long way to go, and the Harbaugh story is just the latest brushfire with which the team has had to contend. But Pettine said he is not fazed by the enormity of his task.

“No, because that’s negative,” he said. “To me, this is a dream come true. I pinch myself every day. I wake up in the morning and I say, ‘I’m head coach of the Cleveland Browns. I can’t wait to get to work.’

“There’s so much negative, I think you can get overwhelmed by it. I don’t see it that way. I know that I’m very blessed to be here, that my path was different.

“I think that’s helped to motivate me. I’m the proverbial guy from the mail room. I don’t have the pedigree that some other coaches have, that were former players, or the big college name coaches. I feel I’ve worked my way up and had a lot to overcome.”